Does Weather Really Affect Your Mood?

If you live in New England, then you know that when wondering what the weather is like, look out the window and wait five minutes. If there’s anything you can count on, it’s the unpredictability of our weather. Waking up, it can be a beautiful day, so you dress in your T-shirts and shorts, and before you know it it’s pouring! But maybe there is something reliable about the famous weather in New England: the way it affects our mood.

In the fall, when the days are gloomy, windy and wet, do you find yourself stir crazy and blue? Or in the winter, when the sky is bright and the air is dry, but the snow reaches your thighs, do you find yourself feeling down?

According to a publication of the Columbian University Press from the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, “a syndrome characterized by depression during the winter months when there is less day light”, is the cause of this. Brought on by the lack of daylight, SAD directly causes the body’s natural clock to, “go out of sync, thus upsetting the body’s routine, and affecting certain hormonal levels in the body.”

In addition, there are also studies whose findings are used in several law enforcement agencies today, linking weather with long periods of high temperatures to increases in crime, explaining the heat as a source of hostility and irritation in people. By these facts alone, one could assume that weather undeniably affects our mood, to some extent.

According to a study in October of 2008 titled, The Effects of Weather on Daily Mood: A Multilevel Approach, a group of European University Researchers, Lars Penke, Marcel A. G. van Aken, Ligaya Butalid, and Jaap J. A. Denissen further investigated this idea, examining six different weather factors – temperature, wind, sunlight, precipitation, air pressure and length of day. After looking into more than 1,200 participants, most of which were women, contrary to prior belief, the average effect of ‘good’ weather on a positive mood was minimal, as was the effect of cool, windy and dark, or ‘bad’ weather on a negative mood.

“That rain is gloom and sunshine is happiness is metaphorical rather than scientific, though it rings true because we humans are inherently sympathetic (naturally sensitive) to our environment.” [healthyliving.msn.com] In the end, the only true conclusion left to come to is simply this: it all depends on the person.